He had a dazzling way of speaking. His mastery of the spoken word was admired by all. Even the victims of his impertinence bowed in front of the surgical precision of his rhetoric. His critics underlined the coldness and harshness of his comments, but his close circle enjoyed his friendly, tender turns of phrase and his humour, as well as his ability to listen to others with troubling attention. In front of orchestras, he favoured terseness, only addressing musicians vocally in case of ultimate need, when gesture no longer sufficed. A man of notes and of sounds, Pierre Boulez was also a man of words. However, he didn’t always feel the need to speak in order to express himself. His eyes, with their confounding vivacity and depth, never ceased to tell, to offer, to maintain fruitful contact with whoever he engaged with. The peerless intelligence of a personality thriving in protean activities shimmered in that penetrating, attentive, playful and even caring gaze.
I was fortunate enough to meet this grand man of the history of music, to share the stage with him, and also to exchange views on matters ranging from the mundane to the most personal, around a table or in the hall of an airport, in Milan or Chicago. He became a faithful friend. Friendship was no light matter for this reserved man more at ease with fighting and adversity than in the face of expressions of admiration that could leave him speechless. Friendship was to him an unerodable, paramount value.
Pierre Boulez was a composer. His scores revealed a free, innovative spirit, a genius who drew on the past to shape his own era. Yet, he spent his life working at a staggering number of different jobs. He was a conductor with an unlimited repertoire, equally committed to the great Wagnerian works and to emerging composers. He was a radiant figure among young people, particularly in Lucerne, where his Academy brought together conductors, composers and orchestral musicians from all over the world. He was also a writer, a teacher, a polemicist, a creator and director of institutions, a populariser of the most demanding works. He excelled in every field, commenting on Paul Klee better than any art historian. He fed off encounters with the great creators of his times, such as Francis Bacon, whose works will illuminate this year’s Printemps des arts, thanks to the help of the Francis Bacon MB Art Foundation and its president, Majid Boustany.
Pierre Boulez was born on 26 March 1925, that is in the beginning of spring. It seemed only natural to me to celebrate his centenary at a festival he visited, and which featured his music on several occasions. Strangely enough, I’ve decided to devote just one concert to his music, to be performed on the very day of his centenary, and conducted by myself. I wanted to draw a portrait of Boulez beyond the obvious. I wished to grasp this singular personality through the lens of his tastes, his influences, his repertoire as a conductor, his inheritance, his relationship to the artists he admired – but also to those he disliked!
The Orchestre philharmonique de Monte-Carlo (OPMC), led by Finnish conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste, will present the Parsifal Overture by Richard Wagner, the first and last work that Boulez conducted at the Bayreuth Festival from 1966, as well as Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 8, the last musical monument that Boulez studied and regularly conducted. The BBC Symphony Orchestra – which Boulez served as musical director – will bring together his “spiritual fathers”: Béla Bartók, Claude Debussy, Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky, with pianist François-Frédéric Guy as soloist. Another Wagnerian moment, preceded by the Adagio of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 10, will be conducted by Philippe Jordan in collaboration with the Opéra de Monte-Carlo. Finally, a programme will be dedicated to Maurice Ravel, including in particular his two piano concertos with Nelson Goerner. These will be as many opportunities to rediscover the repertoire of the exceptional conductor Boulez was when he defended the modern ways of the past.
To explore Pierre Boulez’s musical sources of inspiration, Quatuor Akilone have been given carte blanche to introduce us mainly to the Second Viennese School. Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils Alban Berg and Anton Webern were Boulez’s native tongue, and his taste for the intimacy and condensing of ideas in chamber music is well known.
After the “ancestors”, let’s move on to the professor and Boulez’s generation of fellow composers. On the one hand, Olivier Messiaen, who taught Pierre Boulez harmony at the Paris Conservatoire, will be present through his organ works performed by Thomas Ospital, as well as his Quatuor pour la fin du Temps at the closing concert given by the Trio Pantoum and clarinetist Ann Lepage. On the other hand, Luciano Berio, György Ligeti and Karlheinz Stockhausen, who shared Boulez’s desire to build a new world of sound, will enliven the rest of the programme, in particular with the monumental Stimmung, composed by the latter in 1968, which opens this year’s festival.
Pierre Boulez cared for the generations that came after him. Exploring extremely varied aesthetic paths, Marc-André Dalbavie, Péter Eötvös, Gérard Grisey, Philippe Hurel, Philippe Manoury, Yan Maresz and the author of these lines had the privilege of often being programmed by the man who had a benevolent eye for them and who, despite his aura and genius, stepped back with immense modesty behind his colleagues when conducting their works. Their music will of course be present at this year’s festival. What’s more, Pierre Boulez was an exceptional teacher, and we’ll be able to attend the screening of several films in which he analyses and passes on his own music and that of other composers.
The sometimes rough voicing of his strong convictions and his sense of controversy have given Pierre Boulez the image of a harsh, intolerant man. He repeatedly expressed his dislike of jazz, describing the repertoire as “predictable”. Yet many improvisers share Boulez’s sources of inspiration, such as the music of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. Pianist Hervé Sellin will weave links between the different repertoires, breaking down the boundaries that separate them. As for the Ensemble Linea, they will be performing works by André Jolivet, a composer unjustly scorned by Pierre Boulez at the start of his career – fortunately, Boulez withdrew his peremptory remarks, and even conducted Jolivet’s music –, as well as pieces by Raphaël Cendo, a musician with a singular affinity for electro music, who recently wrote several acerbic tribunes against Pierre Boulez.
We’ll also explore some of Boulez’s secret gardens. Although he said little on the subject, Pierre Boulez had a real passion for the repertoires of the 16th and 17th centuries. Dowland and Monteverdi will therefore be showcased this year, played by organist Éric Lebrun as well as in a concert given by Les Musiciens du Prince and Il Canto di Orfeo in coproduction with the Opéra de Monte-Carlo.
Besides visual arts, Pierre Boulez was immensely sensitive to the great poetic texts. Those set to music by Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, sung by Vincent Le Texier accompanied by Ancuza Aprodu. And those of René Char, Stéphane Mallarmé, Antonin Artaud and Henri Michaux, which accompanied Pierre Boulez throughout his life and will be unveiled by Alain Carré and other actors. Boulez was also passionate about theater. His collaboration with Patrice Chéreau was fertile, and we’ll be able to attend the screening of their last operatic work together, Leoš Janáček’s From the House of the Dead, filmed at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in 2007. He was also a fervent supporter of ballet music, especially when it was composed by his favorite composers. Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo will present a programme based on the creation of a piece inspired by Arnold Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night, choreographed by Marco Goecke.
This Printemps des arts 1025 is both an anniversary and a portrait of a major figure of music in the 20th and 21st centuries. As in previous years, the Before and After sessions will help us better encompass the powerful and endearing personality of a man who profoundly marked the history of his art, and the history of all the arts.
Bruno Mantovani,
Artistic Director
